On periodic and chaotic behavior in a two-dimensional monopoly model

Abstract We study the monopoly model of T. Puu with cubic price and quadratic marginal cost functions. A numerical continuation method is used to compute branches of solutions of period 5, 10, 13 and 17 and to determine the stability regions of these solutions. General formulas for solutions of period 4 are derived analytically. We show that the solutions of period 4 are never linearly asymptotically stable. A nonlinear stability criterion is combined with basin of attraction analysis and simulation to determine the stability region of the 4-cycles. This corrects the erroneous linear stability analysis in previous studies of the model. The chaotic and periodic behavior of the monopoly model is further analyzed by computing the largest Lyapunov exponents, and this confirms the above mentioned results.